The Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF) is pleased to invite you to an online event “Addressing human rights abuses in Kazakhstan: a need for the EU response” co-hosted by MEP Petras Auštrevičius (Renew Europe; Lithuania) in cooperation with ODF. The event will be live-streamed on Thursday, 25 March 2021, 14:00 – 15:30 CET / Brussels time, and will feature interventions […]
On 4 March 2021 we organised an online hearing for Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), European Parliament advisors and selected journalists under the title “Law and Justice’s Crackdown on Independent Prosecutors in Poland Intensifies”, featuring persecuted Polish independent prosecutors from the Lex Super Omnia association – Katarzyna Kwiatkowska, Jacek Bilewicz and Ewa Wrzosek – […]
On 4 March 2021 we organised an online hearing for Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), European Parliament advisors and selected journalists under the title “Law and Justice’s Crackdown on Independent Prosecutors in Poland Intensifies”, featuring persecuted Polish independent prosecutors from the Lex Super Omnia association – Katarzyna Kwiatkowska, Jacek Bilewicz and Ewa Wrzosek – […]
The Ordo Iuris Institute is a fundamentalist organisation, highly active in Poland and the EU. It is linked – according to numerous sources – to both the Kremlin and a dangerous Brasilian sect. They are directly responsible for numerous assaults on EU values, most notably human rights and equality, successfully campaigning i.a. against LGBTI rights (being the architects of the “LGBT-free zones” in Poland), for the EU not to ratify the Council of Europe’s “Convention on combating violence against women and domestic violence” (Instanbul Convention) and most notably against the fundamental rights of women. They are behind the recent, barbaric, total abortion ban in Poland, which led to the largest protests the country has seen since the fall of communism.
On October 16, 2020, two letters signed by twenty-four MEPs representing 14 EU Member States addressed Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in the context of the extremely worrying human rights trend in the country.
In the light of the recent celebration of the International Human Rights Day, we would like to highlight the recent announcement of the EU to adopt a new Global Human Rights Sanction Regime and ODF’s campaign for the adoption of Magnitsky style sanctions in the EU, its national parliaments and overseas. On 7 December, 2020, the […]
On October 8, 2020 we had the pleasure of organising an online hearing for Members of the European Parliament under the title “How should the EU support the Polish judiciary?”, featuring persecuted Polish judges Beata Morawiec and Dariusz Mazur, with additional expertise provided by Prof. Laurent Pech. The event was co-hosted by MEPs Róza Thun […]
The Open Dialogue Foundation invites you to a Zoom hearing with persecuted Polish judges Beata Morawiec & Dariusz Mazur with additional expertise provided by Prof. Laurent Pech. Who? Judge Beata Morawiec, President of the Themis Judges’ Association. First judge to win a court case against Justice Minister Z. Ziobro for her unlawful removal from office, […]
In times of crisis, people often understandably turn to governments for help. And yet while there is an important and crucial role for governments to play during a pandemic, we shouldn’t forget the vital part played by the free market. If both the government and the market are allowed to perform the right functions, together they can help get us out of this extraordinary time.
The Open Dialogue Foundation provided inputs to the first annual Rule of Law Report, the European Commission’s latest oversight mechanism and a part of its wider rule of law toolbox. Together with experts and practitioners from Poland – judges Dariusz Mazur and Agnieszka Niklas-Bibik, as well as former public media employee, Piotr Owczarski – we submitted our feedback on the worrisome developments in the Polish justice system and media sector in 2019 and the first half of 2020. The European Commission’s initiative will result in the “Rule of Law Report”, expected to be published in September 2020.
The next few days and weeks will determine the fate of the Supreme Court, a key institution in the Polish legal system that is currently upholding the independence of the judiciary. In 2018 the Supreme Court was attacked by two foreign bodies, the so-called Disciplinary Chamber (ID) and the Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs (IKNiSP). Contrary to their names, they do not consist of independent judges, but of party nominees loyal to the current parliamentary majority and the Law and Justice government.
The Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, the think tank of the EPP, has just published a new research paper entitled “EU Human Rights Promotion in Central Asia – Between the Dragon and the Bear”, written by ODF’s analysts Igor Savchenko, Kateryna Savchenko and Andriy Osavoliuk. The research paper consists of six sections, tackling a wide range of topics, from the promotion of human rights in Central Asia from the EU’s security perspective, to China and Russia’s influence in the region, including an analysis of how Central Asian regimes have progressively adopted human rights violations from Russia and China.
The Open Dialogue Foundation is one of eight European organisations whose comments and report on the state of the judiciary in EU Member States in the framework of the EU Justice Scoreboard 2020 initiative have been adopted and published by the European Commission. Our study was prepared together with the ‘Themis’ Association of Judges and concerned the state of the Polish justice system.
On 17 February 2020, we arranged a visit of Kazakhstani human rights defenders, Bota Jardemalie and Dana Zhanay, to the European Parliament in order to attend an exchange of views with DCAS members on the situation of human rights in Kazakhstan prior to the 17th EU – Kazakhstan Parliamentary Cooperation Committee (PCC) meeting in Nur-Sultan on 25-27 February. The roundtable discussion provided a rich exchange of views between the MEPs and members of civil society and NGOs.
We have recently learned of an event held in the European Parliament on January 23rd, 2020, organised by the “EU Today” website. The event’s title, “NGOs: between public good and bad governance”, would suggest the event covered an interesting and important topic, the functioning of NGOs in the EU. Unfortunately, as we’ve learned from one of the unlucky participants of the event, this title was just disguise for another action by “EU Today” founder, former UKIP employee, far-right racist and Holocaust denier, Gary Cartwright, aiming to discredit ODF and our work, specifically in Kazakhstan.
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